Effects of low-level radiation

The proportionate mortality technique used by Mancuso et al. (Health Phys. vol. 33, 369, 1977) in their study of Hanford workers was applied to Australian statistics for 1975. It showed that 'exposure' to conditions in Western Australia caused 150 excess cancer deaths in 1975. This conclusion is false since both the overall death rate and cancer mortality rate in Western Australia in 1975 were lower than in the rest of Australia. A comparison of Australian cancer deaths with mortality expected for a radiation exposure of the entire population of Australia to 1.5R/yr from natural background radiation (as in the Kerala region of India) suggests a study of cancer deaths in the 15-40s in high radiation areas as a possible test of the linear hypothesis, as the expected deaths are of the same order of magnitude as those observed in Australia due to all causes. (U.K.)